In The Sun
by SongbirdNoodles
Summary: When she thinks about Danny -not that she does, often, not that she dwells on it- she pictures him in the sun. CJ/Danny.


In The Sun

_I picture you in the sun_

_wondering what went wrong_

When she thinks about Danny -not that she does, often, not that she dwells on it, but, occasionally, when Gail's being particularly lively or the Press Corps particularly sluggish, when she catches a witty Op-Ed headline in the Post or a whiff of ink and earth lingering on a sweater or scarf she hasn't worn in awhile, she can't help but think about him, and when she does- she pictures him in the sun.

She sees him easily navigating southern hemisphere megacities, Mumbai and Dhaka, Sao Paolo and Lagos, knowing his favorite food-vendors by name, shaking hands with them, asking how business is going and listening to their tales with genuine interest, nodding, asking all the right questions with years of honed journalistic skills. She follows him into dingy restaurants not frequented by westerners, where he tries the local cuisine and finds he likes it, and then, sometimes, it seems to her he's turning towards her with a daring look, _When the hell are you coming here?_, and then she blinks and finds that instead of a tropical cityscape, all she's looking at is a gray December sky stretched across Lafayette park.

They're still in touch, sort of. It's a weird expression, because for some reason, the first thing she thinks of when she does think of him are his hands, covering hers, not clutching or cumbersome but reassuring, guiding her through some sprawling third-world market or other, one hand pointing out his favorite vendors, the other firmly in hers, fingers interlaced, refusing to let go. It's such a nice -fantasy? daydream?- that she feels like the chatty emails she occasionally finds waiting for her are a poor replacement. But chatty emails she gets, easily a page and a half about a meeting with an American businessman in Shanghai who thinks democracy's moved past its expiration date; a couple of paragraphs about a refugee camp in Gaza, like he's making sure she doesn't forget that there's a world outside the White House.

She never means to reply to them, and yet she always does, stays up late with a glass of wine, staring at her laptop, trying far too hard to be just as witty and reflective and _smart_ -so goddamn perceptive, easily drawing lines from Beijing to Teheran to - as he is with just as little effort.

She's not sure what it is he's doing out there, exactly. She thinks he's writing a book, she seems to remember him mentioning it to her once, _The Age Of The People: Democracy's Global Success Story, _because he's the kind of person to pick an idealistic title like that, but judging by the columns popping up in the Post irregularly from every corner of the world, he seems mainly to be drifting.

It's hard not to be envious, when you're cooped up in this building all day, dealing with blind quotes and State of the Union word counts and Josh possibly losing his mind, of someone who gets to just get on a plane and _leave_. Go wherever, and find something beautiful, or terrible, to write about. It's hard not to wish, on some days, that she was there with him, trying out resorts, talking to people from every corner of the world and seeing more of it than this cramped office.

It's hard not to wish, on some days, that she was there. With him.

_And falling down on your knees_

_asking for sympathy_

It's not like he thinks about her all the time. It isn't like that at all, even though some people -mainly Katie, who emails him snippets like "don't watch the briefings this week" and "her hair doesn't really look like that" along with pictures of her kids- seem to think it is. Truth is, he goes through days, weeks, sometimes, where he doesn't spare her much of a thought, where he's much too busy with his work, talking, listening, asking questions ( and all of that with _real_ people, for a change, who think spin is something you do to a wooden top).

And he's loving it. He got caught in US politics early in his journalistic career, because he never could bare write off his country in search of another to care about, but he doesn't see it that way now. His country's in good hands with President Bartlet, with Leo and Josh. There's more out there, and it's time he saw it. There are stories clamoring to be told, and he's going to tell them, and it has nothing to do with keeping his mind far away from Pennsylvania Avenue.

But when he does think of her, he pictures her in the sun. Somehow, even though he knows how blue skies are a rarity in DC between October and May, all he sees when he thinks of her is sunlight reflecting in her eyes, coats and scarves and mittens long-forgotten. She's striding towards him between cherry trees, and always smiling, laughing openly, not a care in the world. It's silly, and stupid, because he knows the kind of trouble they've been having, he caught half a briefing on BBC World with her, pale and with shadows under her eyes like you wouldn't believe, stumbling into "relieved to be doing something that matters". She's not smiling a lot these days, that much he's sure of.

And he's glad he's so far away, so thoroughly removed, because if he was still sitting in that press room he'd actually have to care. And by care he means the self-righteous clamoring all his colleagues have adopted in the wake of this startling disclosure, rather than a shocked thought of, "my God, MS" and something childish but empathetic among the lines of "does that hurt?" If he were there, he'd be forced pissed at her and pissed at Leo and the President, and he'd be hunting her down with these questions and basically torturing her with this thing, this thing that has nothing to do with _anything_. The people he talks to every day are teaching him a lesson: what a luxury it is for his country to be able to care so much about the President having MS and not telling anyone about it.

But despite all that, when he does think of CJ, he doesn't see her like she is today, haunted, hunted, tired. He sees her smiling, laughing, standing in the DC sun, looking radiant. It's a wonderful and seductive version of her, one he never got to really know, only hints of.

It's a version of her he wants to spend the rest of his life discovering.

_And being caught in between_

_all you wish for and all you seen_

When he was first gone, she somehow always pictured him alone. Always. Always weaving through knots of people without anyone by his side, always looking at her, or maybe looking for her to come join him, finally. Stupid and silly as it was, she refused to think about it, but there it was, the truth: when she pictured him, h was waiting for her, refusing to give her up, and it was enough to just know that he might be out there, waiting, in case all this blew up in her face. A living, breathing, back-up plan.

It's Christmas, now, and he's back, and still, she sees him alone. Sitting up at his laptop, typing slowly and deliberately the one story that could bring them down, all of them. She seems him, choosing his words with aching accuracy, checking and rechecking facts, waiting. Writing.

And he's alone. And so is she, and it's Christmas morning, and the fact that she's feeling beyond guilty for not being with her Dad and brothers isn't making this any easier.

She takes a hot bath, eats some cookies, wiles around on the couch, calls Napa, putters around the kitchen for awhile. She didn't even get a proper Christmas tree this year, just strung some lights and ornaments on the enormous ficus plant in her living room, and it's depressing to look at. Before she knows what she's doing, she's putting on make-up and cranberry body spritz (appropriately festive), a pair of gorgeous, fitted black slacks and a nicely low-cut sweater, with no intention to be alone tonight. She pictures him alone, sitting at his computer, while the snow gathers outside, and she's reaching for her handbag and a scarf and hat when reality catches up with her. _You can't be serious._ Shaking her head at herself, she reaches for the phone and dials a familiar number.

"Josh?" A hollow greeting. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," he mutters, and she remembers the thing last night about Donna and her Commander Wonderful, the look on his face, like he'd only just gotten it.

"Are you in the office?"

"CJ, you called me at my desk."

Right. "Come over here. I've got all this food, and we can get spectacularly drunk and watch _It's A Wonderful Life_. "

"Are you okay?"

"Are you?"

"Fair point," Josh concedes. "I'll be there."

_There_, she nods to herself, satisfied. Nothing like booze and commiseration to help her get over the pangs of… what, exactly?

Not that it matters.

_And trying to find anything you can feel_

_that you can believe in_

When he thinks of her these days, all he can think of is how incredibly alone she must be. All alone in that office that has to still feel like Leo's to her; with Leo running for VP, Josh and Donna gone on the campaign trail, Sam a corporate lawyer in California, and Toby… gone.

All gone, and she's the only one left, and that breaks his heart from afar. He's given up traveling now, he's finished his book and gone back to full-time reporting, House races, the Massachusetts referendum on gay marriage, the sort of thing he should appreciate after the work he's done for the book, except it's not working. He can't get over the feeling that these people, pundits and communication directors, are treating the democracy they get to live in and work in and actually _shape_ with a complacent contempt that belies everything he's seen and heard in the past six years.

The thing is, that he longs to talk to someone -fine, to her- about this. He needs to laugh and argue and banter again with someone who's not playing but genuinely is hard to get, who's so busy not appearing vulnerable that she forgets sometimes you have to allow for the possibility that people might hurt you if you want them in their lives. He longs for her downcast smile, for the incredulous, totally innocent blush creeping over her cheeks when he compliments her appearance, the self-satisfied, self-assured swagger when she doesn't need compliments to know her own skill.

He misses her, and she's incredibly alone, and all of this is happening just a few months before she'll be out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and that's gotta mean something, right? Maybe it means that things don't have to be complicated between them. Maybe it means that they can pretend they're other people.

It's in that spirit he picks up the phone and, calm as anything, calls her at work and asks her out to dinner.

'_Cause if I find-_

_if I find my own way-_

_how much will I find_?

She doesn't know what's crazier, the fact that she can't -honestly cannot- stop thinking about him, or the fact that that's not at all reprehensible anymore. She's supposedly having dinner with Donna, and while she genuinely does care about the final, oh-so-satisfying installment of the Josh and Donna saga, she keeps catching herself drifting away, picturing him, getting off the plane at LAX, renting a car, checking into a hotel.

During work the next few days, it seems like a part of her is always with him, making calls to realtors and looking at apartments, and she sees it so clearly, him, his New England eyes squinting at the California sun. It doesn't help that he calls every couple of hours, describing balconies, wood-burning fireplaces, floor-to-ceiling windows with a view of the ocean.

During one of these conversations, she finally takes the plunge without ever really meaning to. "Do you think we should be looking at houses?"

"Houses?" Danny repeats, in surprise. "Why?"

"I don't know," she starts backpedaling, "you know, for more room, and it'd be nice to have a backyard, maybe, and, you know-"

"I didn't know you wanted a backyard," Danny interrupts. "Don't take this personally, but you don't seem like the gardening type."

"I could be," she shrugs, playfully. "I gotta keep busy somehow, right? And it'd be nice for the kids."

Danny practically chokes on the Iced Chai Latte he's been slurping, phone tucked in the crook of his neck as he sits in the rental car, waiting for his next appointment with a realtor to roll around . "What kids?"

"Um." On the other end of the line, on the other side of the country, CJ's blushing, fumbling, silent. "The kids that we haven't really talked about having and that we don't need to have?"

"CJ?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm in."

She breathes in, sharply, relieved, though of course, she was never really worried. And smiles. Smiles wider than she thought she could, and sees him in front of her so clearly all she wants is to feel his arms around her, and finally embrace their glowing future together.


End file.
